The Pope also extended his decree that allows SSPX priests to hear valid confessions

Pope Francis is allowing all priests to absolve the “grave sin” of abortion, extending special permission he had granted them in 2015 for the just-ended Holy Year of Mercy.

Francis wrote in Misericordia et misera, an apostolic letter concluding the Year of Mercy, that “there is no sin that God’s mercy cannot reach,” while staunchly reiterating that “abortion is a grave sin.”

In his letter, Pope Francis formally gave all priests permanent permission to grant absolution to those who confess to having procured an abortion. While many bishops around the world, and almost all bishops in the United States, routinely grant that faculty to all their priests, Pope Francis had made it universal during the Holy Year.

Without formal permission, priests had been required to refer the case to their bishops before granting sacramental absolution to a woman who had an abortion or those directly involved in the procedure.

“I henceforth grant to all priests, in virtue of their ministry, the faculty to absolve those who have committed the sin of procured abortion,” he wrote.

“The provision I had made in this regard, limited to the duration of the Extraordinary Holy Year, is hereby extended, notwithstanding anything to the contrary. I wish to restate as firmly as I can that abortion is a grave sin, since it puts an end to an innocent life. In the same way, however, I can and must state that there is no sin that God’s mercy cannot reach and wipe away when it finds a repentant heart seeking to be reconciled with the Father. May every priest, therefore, be a guide, support and comfort to penitents on this journey of special reconciliation.”

In the letter, released on Monday, the Pope also extended his decree that allow SSPX priests to hear valid confessions.

“For the Jubilee Year I had also granted that those faithful who, for various reasons, attend churches officiated by the priests of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X, can validly and licitly receive the sacramental absolution of their sins,” he wrote.

“For the pastoral benefit of these faithful, and trusting in the good will of their priests to strive with God’s help for the recovery of full communion in the Catholic Church, I have personally decided to extend this faculty beyond the Jubilee Year, until further provisions are made.”

Although the Vatican and the society continue talks aimed at formally restoring the society’s full communion with the Church, Pope Francis said he was extending the pastoral provision “lest anyone ever be deprived of the sacramental sign of reconciliation through the Church’s pardon.”

Acknowledging and sharing God’s mercy is a permanent part of the Christian life, so initiatives undertaken during the special Year of Mercy must continue, Pope Francis explained in the letter.

“Mercy cannot become a mere parenthesis in the life of the Church,” the Pope said.

The Catholic Church’s focus on God’s mercy must continue with individual acts of kindness, assistance to the poor and, particularly, with encouraging Catholics to participate in the sacrament of reconciliation and making it easier for them to do so, the Pontiff wrote.

The title of the document is taken from a sermon by St Augustine about Jesus’s encounter with the woman caught in adultery. After those who wanted to stone her slinked away, only Jesus and the woman — mercy and misery — remained.

In the Gospel story, the Pope wrote, and in the sacraments of the Church, particularly confession and the anointing of the sick, “references to mercy, far from being merely exhortative, are highly performative, which is to say that as we invoke mercy with faith, it is granted to us, and as we confess it to be vital and real, it transforms us,” as it did with the woman caught in adultery.

“This is a fundamental element of our faith,” Pope Francis wrote.

“Even before the revelation of sin, there is the revelation of the love by which God created the world and human beings,” he wrote. “His love always precedes us, accompanies us and remains with us, despite our sin.”

In celebrating and welcoming God’s love and mercy, he said, a special place in the Church must be given to families, especially at a time when the very meaning of family is in crisis.

“The beauty of the family endures unchanged, despite so many problems and alternative proposals,” he said. “The grace of the sacrament of marriage not only strengthens the family to be a privileged place for practicing mercy, but also commits the Christian community and all its pastoral activity to uphold the great positive value of the family.”

Still, he wrote, “the experience of mercy enables us to regard all human problems from the standpoint of God’s love, which never tires of welcoming and accompanying,” even in situations marked by failure or sin.

“Our life, with its joys and sorrows, is something unique and unrepeatable that takes place under the merciful gaze of God,” he said. In counselling couples priests must use “a careful, profound and far-sighted spiritual discernment, so that everyone, none excluded, can feel accepted by God, participate actively in the life of the community and be part of that People of God which journeys tirelessly toward the fullness of his kingdom of justice, love, forgiveness and mercy.”

“Nothing of what a repentant sinner places before God’s mercy can be excluded from the embrace of his forgiveness,” the Pope added. “For this reason, none of us has the right to make forgiveness conditional.”

In the letter, Pope Francis also asked dioceses that have not yet done so to consider joining the “24 Hours for the Lord” initiative. Near the fourth Sunday of Lent, dioceses choose a church or churches to stay open for 24 hours to offer the sacrament of reconciliation and eucharistic adoration. The Pope opens the Rome celebration with a penance service in St Peter’s Basilica.

After his Year of Mercy celebration on Nov 13 with the homeless and other people who are “socially excluded,” the Pope wrote that he would like a similar celebration to be held annually in every diocese.

“The entire Church might celebrate, on the 33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time, the World Day of the Poor,” he said. The celebration, a week before the feast of Christ the King, would be “the worthiest way to prepare” to acknowledge the kingship of Christ, “who identified with the little ones and the poor and who will judge us on our works of mercy.”

“It would be a day to help communities and each of the baptized to reflect on how poverty is at the very heart of the Gospel and that, as long as Lazarus lies at the door of our homes, there can be no justice or social peace,” he said.

Calling the Bible “the great story of the marvels of God’s mercy,” Pope Francis also asked every Catholic parish in the world to set aside at least one Sunday a year to promote reading, studying and praying with the Scriptures.

Teaching people “lectio divina,” the prayerful reading of the Bible, especially when focused on texts that speak of God’s mercy and love, will help “give rise to concrete gestures and works of charity,” he wrote.

In another continuation of a Year of Mercy project, Pope Francis asked the more than 1,100 priests he commissioned as “missionaries of mercy” to continue leading retreats, missions, prayer services and offering confession in dioceses around the world.

“Their pastoral activity sought to emphasize that God places no roadblocks in the way of those who seek him with a contrite heart, because he goes out to meet everyone like a father,” Francis said.

While he said he did not have specifics about how the missionaries’ work should continue, Pope Francis said the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelisation “will supervise them and find the most suitable forms for the exercise of this valuable ministry.”

2 comments

Why is abortion a sin? Yahweh has his own recipe for abortion in Numbers 5, as part of a test for a woman accused of infidelity. Apparently Yahweh changed his mind regarding the unborn, for whom he had no concern in the Old Testament, and in his Jesus persona, without saying a word about it, somehow inspired the Church to insist that everyone be baptized or lose their salvation; i.e. go to Hell. Note that prior to the “good news” of Jesus, everyone good and bad alike went to Sheol, (a word the Church translated to the pagan word “Hell” but which was not a place of suffering), and at the end of time, most Jews thought Yahweh would wake them, judge them and reward or destroy them. We didn’t get the glorious concept of eternal punishment, beginning at the moment of death, until the Catholic Church made it the most critical part of Jesus’ so-called “good news.” Personally, I’d prefer Sheol and destruction at the end of time, rather than eternal torment, if it turned out that I failed to believe, say and do the right things in my handful of decades here. I fail to see how our position has been improved by Jesus’ visit. To sentence any human being to eternal torment for any reason whatsoever is the most disproportionate, despicable, evil ever imagined by mankind – and the Church wants us to worship the evil gods (Yahweh/Jesus) who created and enforce this abhorrent evil. Gen 3:22 says that we, like the gods, know good and evil. That may have been a warning that our gods were very evil indeed.
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Aborted, miscarried and stillborn souls are not saved, given that they committed the grievous sin of dying before getting baptized, though of course, through no fault of their own. This is the default position for those not baptized, according the catechism. There are two other options though… you are allowed to believe in the fanciful “Limbo” invented by Augustine as a suburb of Hell where you are spared the worst torments, but this is not doctrine. You are also allowed to “hope” that Yahweh/Jesus is not a complete monster, and that he will gather in the souls of these completely innocent souls (aside from the mythical original sin for which they bear no responsibility), and begrudgingly grant them salvation. This “hope” is not to be treated as “faith” (pretending to know things you don’t know), but is only a very thin and tenuous hope, given that salvation requires a baptism they did not receive.
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The problem here is that Catholics apparently worship an evil god who they believe sends complete innocents to Hell, or at a minimum, denies them salvation. The issue isn’t whether women who have an abortion should be forgiven, the far greater issue is questioning why we should worship an evil god. Of course the common sense support for contraception would go a long way to reducing the number of souls the Catholic god sends to Hell, but that would mean backing off of its maniacal obsession with sex, and the organization is still far too disordered for that.